BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News [Buffalo NY]
May 20, 2024
By Jay Tokasz
It’s been more than four years since Bishop Richard J. Malone resigned as leader of the Buffalo Diocese amid a firestorm of criticism over his role in covering up molestation claims against clergy.
Malone, now 77, has mostly kept a low profile while living in a Town of Tonawanda home owned by Catholic Cemeteries of Buffalo.
But this past week, he presided over confirmation ceremonies at St. Gregory the Great in Amherst, the largest parish in the Buffalo Diocese. In two separate services at the church, he marked the foreheads of more than 100 young people with holy oil, reminisced about his days as a campus minister at Harvard University, and urged nearly 1,000 people in attendance to take “a new step forward with Jesus.” He has also done confirmations in several other churches since 2023 in Allegany County, Orchard Park and Williamsville, and was scheduled Sunday for a confirmation in Hamburg.
At St. Gregory the Great Church on Wednesday, Malone recalled having dinner earlier this year with current Bishop Michael W. Fisher, who asked him if he would be willing to help with spring confirmations, including at St. Greg’s.
“I said, ‘Not only am I willing, I’m delighted,’ ” said Malone.
The Rev. Leon J. Biernat, pastor of St. Gregory the Great, responded a few minutes later: “Equally we are delighted to have you back,” drawing applause from the congregation.
But Malone’s presence at the altar has baffled and infuriated some area Catholics.
“He just acts as if nothing ever happened,” said Anna Pachulski, a senior at SUNY Buffalo State University who sponsored a 15-year-old cousin confirmed at St. Gregory.
Pachulski said Malone’s leading the service indicated to young people that the diocese still wasn’t serious about handling abuse claims properly.
“The diocese can claim they are on the ‘path of renewal’ all they want, as they do at every Mass, but until their words match their actions, the church is living a lie,” she said. “By continuing to have Bishop Malone confer the sacraments, the leadership in the diocese is quite clearly showing us how much they do not care whatsoever about both the victims of abuse, and all of those who have been deeply affected by this crisis.”
Pachulski brought her concerns beforehand to Biernat, who shrugged them off in an email response and offered to arrange to have Pachulski’s cousin confirmed in another parish with a different presider.
“Our diocese needs a bishop who is merciful and walks with his flock in good times and bad. Instead, our present bishop remains glued to the inside of the chancery. He has no presence in this community and has a misguided focus,” the letter states.
Donna Nalbach, who attends St. Bernadette Church in Orchard Park, said she was appalled to learn that Malone was still serving at important church events, especially confirmation, a sacrament in which young people are fully initiated into the church as Catholics.
“He should have never remained in the Buffalo area given he chose to protect predators instead of innocent children,” said Nalbach. “And for him to now be presiding over confirmation, a sacrament of initiation, shows how extremely tone deaf the diocese continues to be.”
Some other parents privately expressed their dismay to The Buffalo News but said they didn’t want to tarnish the occasion for their children.
Malone, in a statement emailed to The News, said he hasn’t heard any negative comments and “has received nothing but warm welcomes at confirmations and Masses.”
Biernat said in an interview with The News he had no reservations about Malone, who has also assisted occasionally at the parish with weekend Masses.
“He’s always been well received. He’s a good man,” said Biernat. “Both Wednesday and Thursday, I heard nothing but compliments after Mass.”
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With regard to the abuse scandal, Biernat said Malone “did the best someone could do in a tough situation that he kind of walked into.”
Catholic tradition requires that bishops celebrate confirmations, and many dioceses rely on auxiliary bishops to assist in instances where the ordinary bishop is not available. The Buffalo Diocese does not currently have an auxiliary bishop. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz is on leave due to an abuse allegation.
Fisher said in a separate statement that Malone is “in good standing with the Vatican, and as such, continues to enjoy his sacramental life as a bishop.”
“Bishop Emeritus Malone’s work in the Diocese of Buffalo remains purely sacramental and he is not engaged in full ministry,” Fisher said. “In addition, he has no administrative responsibility and he maintains a limited sacramental schedule.”
Fisher also acknowledged that he is permitted “to provide faculties to priests to confirm candidates” and he has done so on occasion.
After more than four years in bankruptcy, the Buffalo Diocese has no deal with 900 claimants who allege they were abused by priests, nuns and other employees.
Malone is banned from serving on any nonprofit boards of trustees in New York, under a 2022 settlement of a New York State Attorney General’s civil lawsuit that alleged he protected abuser priests from public scrutiny and potential prosecution. The AG’s settlement had no bearing on Malone’s ability to perform religious ceremonies.
The Vatican has not publicly admonished Malone.
Pope Francis in 2019 instituted new rules for investigating bishops under a document known as Vos Estis Lux Mundi. The rules were to apply to bishops accused of sexual abuse, as well as to bishops whose conduct includes “actions or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil investigations or canonical investigations” of clergy accused of sexual abuse.
Malone wasn’t subjected to a Vos Estis investigation, despite the AG’s finding that he hadn’t properly examined abuse complaints and had disregarded policies and procedures for handling such complaints, as required under the Catholic Church’s own laws.
The Vatican did authorize an “Apostolic Visitation” of the Buffalo Diocese, sending then-Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio to Western New York to interview nearly 80 people and prepare an investigative report for Vatican officials. The report never became public, and DiMarzio was later accused of abuse in a Child Victims Act lawsuit, triggering a Vos Estis investigation of him.
Malone, appointed to lead the Buffalo Diocese in 2012, became a focus of ire over the diocese’s secretive handling of abuse complaints and abusive clergy dating back decades. Bishops before Malone had concealed abuse complaints going back to the 1950s, allowing accused priests to move from parish to parish without prosecution. Malone was the first Buffalo bishop to publicly identify 42 priests who had been credibly accused of abuse, although he was heavily criticized for withholding the names of dozens more priests with claims against them.
And his own missteps in failing to remove two priests who had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct led to calls for his resignation in 2018.
Those calls intensified in 2019, with a survey by The Buffalo News showing 86% of Catholics polled in Erie and Niagara counties wanting him out. Malone met in November 2019 with Pope Francis as part of a regular visit to the Vatican with his fellow bishops from New York State. The Vatican press office announced a few weeks later that the pope had accepted Malone’s resignation – 15 months prior to his turning 75, the age all bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope.
The Buffalo Diocese’s headquarters in the former Courier-Express newspaper building on Main Street in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is being listed for sale at $9.8 million.
Malone said in a letter at the time that he intended to continue living in the diocese as “bishop emeritus” and to be available to serve in whatever way the new bishop determines is best.
The scandal under Malone ultimately led to the filing of several hundred Child Victims Act lawsuits alleging that more than 230 priests molested children, along with 900 abuse claims in the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
Anne Barrett Doyle said many bishops don’t get punished by the Vatican because there’s so much wiggle room in church laws regarding the reporting of sexual abuse.
Malone’s presiding at confirmations was a statement that he has been “restored to status” as a bishop emeritus, said Barrett Doyle, a board member of bishopaccountability.org, which has been tracking the Catholic Church abuse scandal for more than two decades.
“It’s brazen and it’s disrespectful to all the people who objected to what they saw as the corruption in his leadership and the fact that he deceived the faithful by not being forthright about the names of the credibly accused priests,” she said. “He should have the humility to remain invisible in that diocese.”
Jay Tokasz, Reporter